Simone Biles’ return gave NBC one of its better viewership figures in what has been a historically low Olympic Games.
Tuesday’s primetime coverage of the Tokyo Summer Olympics averaged 17.4 million viewers across NBC’s various television and digital platforms, marking the third-largest primetime audience of the Games — behind the opening Sunday, which featured Biles in the preliminary portion of the gymnastics team competition (20.0M), and last Thursday, when her teammate Sunisa Lee won the all-around (19.2M).
Viewership still declined 32% from the comparable night of the Rio Summer Olympics five years ago — when Biles won her fourth gold medal of the Games (25.6M) — but that sharp decline is actually tied as the smallest of this year’s ratings-challenged Games. Most nights have fallen by well over 40 percent.
Notably, viewership for Tuesday’s primetime window was higher than the previous Tuesday, which featured the marquee event of the gymnastics competition — the team final. Biles pulled out of that event after one rotation and NBC’s primetime audience slumped a Tokyo-high 55% to 16.2 million. This year marks the first time since 1988 that the second Tuesday of a Summer Olympics has outdrawn the first.
Versus the comparable night of the most recent Olympics, the Pyeongchang Winter Games three years ago, viewership fell 15% from 20.5 million.
The Summer Olympics is now averaging 16.8 million viewers across all NBC platforms, down 42% from the comparable point of the Rio Olympics (29.2M). As a reminder, these numbers include viewership across NBC, cable and streaming.
[Nielsen estimates from NBC]
